The awards ceremony was first televised in 1953 and is now seen live in more than 200 countries.[3] The Oscars is the oldest entertainment awards ceremony; its equivalents, the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theatre, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording, are modeled after the Academy Awards.[4] The Academy Awards are widely considered to be the most prestigious cinema awards ceremony in the world.[5]

The 86th Academy Awards ceremony was held on March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, later than usual as to not clash with the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.[6] The 87th Academy Awards ceremony was held on February 22, 2015. Historically given during the first quarter of the new year, the awards honor achievements for cinematic accomplishments for the preceding year. For example, 12 Years a Slave was awarded Best Picture for 2013, although the Oscar ceremony was conducted in 2014.

As of the 87th Academy Awards ceremony held on February 22, 2015, a total of 2,947 Oscars have been awarded.[7]

The first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel.[8] The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5 ($69 as of 2015),[9]. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other personalities of the film-making industry of the time for their works during the 1927–28 period; the ceremony ran for 15 minutes.

Winners had been announced to media three months earlier; however, that was changed in the second ceremony of the Academy Awards in 1930. Since then and during the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11:00 pm on the night of the awards.[8] This method was used until the Los Angeles Times announced the winners before the ceremony began; as a result, the Academy has since 1941 used a sealed envelope to reveal the name of the winners.[8]

The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier; this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. The winners were recognized for all the work done in a certain category during the qualifying period; for example, Jannings received the award for two movies in which he starred during that period, and Janet Gaynor later won a single Oscar for performances in three films. With the fourth ceremony the system changed, and professionals were honored for a specific performance in a single film. For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years.

At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27, 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced. Until then, foreign-language films were honored with the Special Achievement Award.

No model was used during the design process of the statuette.[11] Sculptor George Stanley (who also did the Muse Fountain[12] at the Hollywood Bowl) sculpted Cedric Gibbons's design in clay and Sachin Smith cast the statuette in 92.5 percent tin and 7.5 percent copper and then gold-plated it[citation needed]. The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base. The original Oscar mold was cast in 1928 at the C.W. Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, Illinois, which also contributed to casting the molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Awards statuettes. Since 1983,[13] approximately 50 Oscars are made each year in Chicago by Illinois manufacturer R.S. Owens & Company.[14] It takes between three to four weeks to manufacture 50 statuettes.[11]

In support of the American effort in World War II, the statuettes were made of plaster and were traded in for gold ones after the war had ended.[15]

The origin of the name Oscar is disputed. One biography of Bette Davis claims that she named the Oscar after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson;[16] one of the earliest mentions in print of the term Oscar dates back to a Time magazine article about the 1934 6th Academy Awards.[17]Walt Disney is also quoted as thanking the Academy for his Oscar as early as 1932.[18] Another claimed origin is that the Academy's Executive Secretary, Margaret Herrick, first saw the award in 1931 and made reference to the statuette's reminding her of her "Uncle Oscar" (a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce).[19] Columnist Sidney Skolsky was present during Herrick's naming and seized the name in his byline, "Employees have affectionately dubbed their famous statuette 'Oscar'".[20] The trophy was officially dubbed the "Oscar" in 1939 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

To prevent information identifying the Oscar winners from leaking ahead of the ceremony, Oscar statuettes presented at the ceremony have blank baseplates. Until 2010, winners were expected to return the statuettes to the Academy after the ceremony and wait several weeks to have inscriptions applied. Since 2010, winners have had the option of having engraved nameplates applied to their statuettes at an inscription-processing station at the Governor's Ball, a party held immediately after the Oscar ceremony. In 2010, the R. S. Owens company made 197 engraved nameplates ahead of the ceremony, bearing the names of every potential winner. The 175 or so nameplates for non-winning nominees were recycled afterwards.[21][22]

Since 1950, the statuettes have been legally encumbered by the requirement that neither winners nor their heirs may sell the statuettes without first offering to sell them back to the Academy for US$1. If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy keeps the statuette. Academy Awards not protected by this agreement have been sold in public auctions and private deals for six-figure sums.[23] In December 2011, Orson Welles' 1941 Oscar for Citizen Kane (Best Original Screenplay) was put up for auction, after his heirs won a 2004 court decision contending that Welles did not sign any agreement to return the statue to the Academy.[24] On December 20, 2011, it sold in an online auction for US$861,542.[25]

In 1992, Harold Russell needed money for his wife's medical expenses. In a controversial decision, he consigned his 1946 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for "The Best Years of Our Lives" to Herman Darvick Autograph Auctions, and on August 6, 1992, in New York City, the Oscar sold to a private collector for $60,500. Russell defended his action, saying, "I don't know why anybody would be critical. My wife's health is much more important than sentimental reasons. The movie will be here, even if Oscar isn't." Harold Russell is the only Academy Award winning actor to ever sell an Oscar.

While the Oscar is owned by the recipient, it is essentially not on the open market.[26]Michael Todd's grandson tried to sell Todd's Oscar statuette to a movie prop collector in 1989, but the Academy won the legal battle by getting a permanent injunction. Although some Oscar sales transactions have been successful, some buyers have subsequently returned the statuettes to the Academy, which keeps them in its treasury.[27]

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), a professional honorary organization, maintains a voting membership of 5,783 as of 2012[update].[28]

Academy membership is divided into different branches, with each representing a different discipline in film production. Actors constitute the largest voting bloc, numbering 1,311 members (22 percent) of the Academy's composition. Votes have been certified by the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (and its predecessor Price Waterhouse) for the past 73 annual awards ceremonies.[29]

All AMPAS members must be invited to join by the Board of Governors, on behalf of Academy Branch Executive Committees. Membership eligibility may be achieved by a competitive nomination or a member may submit a name based on other significant contribution to the field of motion pictures.

New membership proposals are considered annually. The Academy does not publicly disclose its membership, although as recently as 2007 press releases have announced the names of those who have been invited to join. The 2007 release also stated that it has just under 6,000 voting members. While the membership had been growing, stricter policies have kept its size steady since then.[30]

In 2012, the results of a study conducted by The Los Angeles Times was published which revealed the demographic breakdown of approximately 88% of AMPAS' voting membership. Of the 5,100+ active voters confirmed, 94% were Caucasian, 77% were male, and 54% were found to be over the age of 60. 33% of voting members are former nominees (14%) and winners (19%).[31]

In May 2011, the Academy sent a letter advising its 6,000 or so voting members that an online system for Oscar voting will be implemented in 2013.[32]

According to Rules 2 and 3 of the official Academy Awards Rules, a film must open in the previous calendar year, from midnight at the start of 1 January to midnight at the end of 31 December, in Los Angeles County, California and play for seven consecutive days, to qualify (except for the Best Foreign Language Film).[33][34] For example, the 2009 Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker, was actually first released in 2008, but did not qualify for the 2008 awards as it did not play its Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles until mid-2009, thus qualifying for the 2009 awards.

Rule 2 states that a film must be feature-length, defined as a minimum of 40 minutes, except for short subject awards, and it must exist either on a 35 mm or 70 mm film print or in 24 frame/s or 48 frame/s progressive scandigital cinema format with a minimum projector resolution of 2048 by 1080 pixels.[35]

Producers must submit an Official Screen Credits online form before the deadline; in case it is not submitted by the defined deadline, the film will be ineligible for Academy Awards in any year. The form includes the production credits for all related categories. Then, each form is checked and put in a Reminder List of Eligible Releases.

In late December ballots and copies of the Reminder List of Eligible Releases are mailed to around 6000 active members. For most categories, members from each of the branches vote to determine the nominees only in their respective categories (i.e. only directors vote for directors, writers for writers, actors for actors, etc.). In all major categories, voters use an instant runoff voting ballot, with potential nominees rewarded in the single transferable vote tally for having strong supporters who rank them first.[36] There are some exceptions in the case of certain categories, like Foreign Film, Documentary and Animated Feature Film, in which movies are selected by special screening committees made up of members from all branches. In the special case of Best Picture, all voting members are eligible to select the nominees for that category. Foreign films must include English subtitles, and each country can submit only one film per year.[37]

The winners are then determined by a second round of voting in which all members are then allowed to vote in most categories, including Best Picture.[38]

Film companies will spend as much as several million dollars on marketing to awards voters for a movie in the running for Best Picture, in attempts to improve chances of receiving Oscars and other movie awards conferred in Oscar season. The Academy enforces rules to limit overt campaigning by its members so as to try to eliminate excesses and prevent the process from becoming undignified. It has an awards czar on staff who advises members on allowed practices and levies penalties on offenders.[39] For example, a producer of the 2010 Best Picture nominee, The Hurt Locker, was disqualified as a producer in the category when he contacted associates urging them to vote for his film and not another that was seen as front-runner (The Hurt Locker eventually won).

The major awards are presented at a live televised ceremony, most commonly in late February or early March following the relevant calendar year, and six weeks after the announcement of the nominees. It is the culmination of the film awards season, which usually begins during November or December of the previous year. This is an elaborate extravaganza, with the invited guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. Black tie dress is the most common outfit for men, although fashion may dictate not wearing a bow-tie, and musical performers sometimes do not adhere to this. (The artists who recorded the nominees for Best Original Song quite often perform those songs live at the awards ceremony, and the fact that they are performing is often used to promote the television broadcast).

The Academy Awards is the only awards show that is televised live in all United States time zones (excluding Hawaii; they aired live in Alaska starting in 2011 for the first time since 1996), Canada, the United Kingdom, and gathers millions of viewers elsewhere throughout the world.[40] The 2007 ceremony was watched by more than 40 million Americans.[41] Other awards ceremonies (such as the Emmys, Golden Globes, and Grammys) are broadcast live in the Eastern & Central time zones, but are on tape delay on the West Coast and might not air the same day outside North America (if the awards are even televised). The Academy has for several years claimed that the award show has up to a billion viewers internationally, but this has so far not been confirmed by any independent sources. The Awards show was first televised in 1953, on NBC, which continued to broadcast the event until 1960 when the ABC Network took over, televising the festivities through 1970, after which NBC resumed the broadcasts. ABC once again took over broadcast duties in 1976 and it is under contract to do so through the year 2020.[42] The first countries to broadcast the Academy Awards on television, aside from the United States, were Canada, the United Kingdom and Mexico; the latter two countries did not broadcast the live show, and Mexico did not carry the live event until 1964. By 1954, seven other countries, namely Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, were already broadcasting the Awards show, although previously filmed into a condensed 60-minute version, called the "International Edition" of the Academy Awards. The Awards show was broadcast for the first time via satellite in 1970, but only two South American countries, Chile and Brazil purchased the rights to air the live event. By that time, the television rights to the Awards show were sold in 50 countries. A decade later, the TV rights to the Oscars were already being sold to 60 countries, and by 1984, the TV rights to the Awards were licensed in 76 countries. Until the arrival of subscription television in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, which enabled the Oscars to be broadcast live through these territories, there was already available a previously filmed or taped 90-minute version of the Awards show which was aired on broadcast television in these territories. However, several Asian and Australasian countries, such as Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand were already carrying the live broadcast of the Awards show since the late 1970s. AMPAS still produces a condensed 90-minute version of the Academy Awards for those territories in which the rights to the live broadcast are expensive.

After more than 60 years of being held in late March or early April, the ceremonies were moved up to late February or early March starting in 2004 to help disrupt and shorten the intense lobbying and ad campaigns associated with Oscar season in the film industry. Another reason was because of the growing TV ratings success of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, which would cut into the Academy Awards audience. The earlier date is also to the advantage of ABC, as it now usually occurs during the highly profitable and important February sweeps period. Some years, the ceremony is moved into early March in deference to the Winter Olympics. Another reason for the move to late February and early March is to avoid the awards ceremony occurring so close to the religious holidays of Passover and Easter, which for decades had been a grievance from members and the general public. Advertising is somewhat restricted, however, as traditionally no movie studios or competitors of official Academy Award sponsors may advertise during the telecast. The Awards show holds the distinction of having won the most Emmys in history, with 47 wins and 195 nominations.[43]

After many years of being held on Mondays at 9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 p.m Pacific, in 1999 the ceremonies were moved to Sundays at 8:30 pm Eastern/5:30 pm Pacific.[44] The reasons given for the move were that more viewers would tune in on Sundays, that Los Angeles rush-hour traffic jams could be avoided, and that an earlier start time would allow viewers on the East Coast to go to bed earlier.[45] For many years the film industry had opposed a Sunday broadcast because it would cut into the weekend box office.[46]

In 1993, an In Memoriam segment was introduced,[47] honoring those who had made a significant contribution to cinema who had died in the preceding 12 months, a selection compiled by a small committee of Academy members.[48] This segment has drawn criticism over the years for the omission of some names. Criticism was also levied for many years regarding another aspect, with the segment having a "popularity contest" feel as the audience varied their applause to those who had died by the subject's cultural impact; the applause has since been muted during the telecast, and the audience is discouraged from clapping during the segment and giving silent reflection instead.

In terms of broadcast length, the ceremony generally averages three and a half hours. The first Oscars, in 1929, lasted 15 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum, the 2000 ceremony lasted four hours and four minutes.[49] In 2010, the organizers of the Academy Awards announced that winners' acceptance speeches must not run past 45 seconds. This, according to organizer Bill Mechanic, was to ensure the elimination of what he termed "the single most hated thing on the show" – overly long and embarrassing displays of emotion.[50]

The Academy has contemplated moving the ceremony even further back into January, citing TV viewers' fatigue with the film industry's long awards season. However, such an accelerated schedule would dramatically decrease the voting period for its members, to the point where some voters would only have time to view the contending films streamed on their computers (as opposed to traditionally receiving the films and ballots in the mail). Also, a January ceremony would have to compete with National Football League playoff games.[51]

By contrast, ceremonies honoring films that have not performed well at the box office tend to show weaker ratings. The 78th Academy Awards which awarded low-budgeted, independent film Crash (with a pre-Oscar gross of US$53.4 million) generated an audience of 38.64 million with a household rating of 22.91%.[55] In 2008, the 80th Academy Awards telecast was watched by 31.76 million viewers on average with an 18.66% household rating, the lowest rated and least watched ceremony to date, in spite of celebrating 80 years of the Academy Awards.[56] The Best Picture winner of that particular ceremony was another independently financed film (No Country for Old Men).

In the first year of the awards, the Best Directing award was split into two separate categories (Drama and Comedy). At times, the Best Original Score award has also been split into separate categories (Drama and Comedy/Musical). From the 1930s through the 1960s, the Art Direction (now Production Design), Cinematography, and Costume Design awards were likewise split into two separate categories (black-and-white films and color films). Prior to 2012, the Production Design award was called Art Direction, while the Makeup and Hairstyling award was called Makeup.

Due to the positive exposure and prestige of the Academy Awards, studios spend millions of dollars and hire publicists specifically to promote their films during what is typically called the "Oscar season". This has generated accusations of the Academy Awards being influenced more by marketing than quality. William Friedkin, an Academy Award-winning film director and former producer of the ceremony, expressed this sentiment at a conference in New York in 2009, describing it as "the greatest promotion scheme that any industry ever devised for itself".[64]

Unfortunately, the critical worth, artistic vision, cultural influence, and innovative qualities of many films are not given the same voting weight. Especially since the 1980s, moneymaking "formula-made" blockbusters with glossy production values have often been crowd-pleasing titans (and Best Picture winners), but they haven't necessarily been great films with depth or critical acclaim by any measure.[69]

Typical criticism of the Academy Awards for Best Picture is that among the winners and nominees there is an over-representation of romantic historical epics, biographical dramas, romantic dramedies, and family melodramas, most of which are released in the U.S. the last three months of the calendar year. The Oscars have been infamously known for selecting specific genres of movies to be awarded. From 1927 to 2001 around 49% of Best Picture nominated films had been categorized as a drama and out of the 432 films to be analyzed within that time 47% of the winning films were in fact dramas.[70] This has led to the coining of the term 'Oscar bait', describing such movies. This has led at times to more specific criticisms that the Academy is disconnected from the audience, e.g. by favoring 'Oscar bait' over audience favorites, or favoring historical melodramas over critically acclaimed movies that depict current life issues.[71]

Acting prizes in certain years have been criticized for not recognizing superior performances so much as being awarded for sentimental reasons,[72] personal popularity,[73] atonement for past mistakes,[74] or presented as a "career honor" to recognize a distinguished nominee's entire body of work.[75]

It has become a tradition to give out gift bags to the presenters and performers at the Oscars. In recent years these gifts have also been extended to award nominees and winners.[76] The total value of these gifts can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars. In 2014 the value was reported to be as high as US$80,000.[77] The value has risen to the point where the U.S. Internal Revenue Service issued a statement regarding the gifts and their taxable status.[78] Oscar gift bags have included vacation packages to Hawaii and Mexico and Japan, a private dinner party for the recipient and friends at a restaurant, videophones, a four-night stay at a hotel. Watches, bracelets, vacation packages, spa treatments, bottles of vodka, maple salad dressing, and weight-loss gummie candy.[76][79][80] Some of the gifts have even had a "risque" element to them; in 2014 the adult products retailer Adam & Eve had a "Secret Room Gifting Suite". Celebrities visiting the gifting suite included Judith Hoag, Carolyn Hennesy, Kate Linder, Chris Mulkey, Jim O'Heir, and NBA star John Salley.[81]